This invention relates to memory management for microprocessors. In particular, the present invention relates to the management of scarce and sometimes overlapping memory space in microprocessor devices such as embedded processors and digital signal processors.
Memory management for DSP engineers is a significant bottleneck in the development process. Currently it is a tedious process in which an engineer often draws a picture of the available memory on a piece of paper and marks off the start addresses of where he/she would like to place the desired memory buffers. The list is made to determine the availability and conflict of the selection of memory locations. This process can be time consuming, tedious and error prone. Often times, when a mistake is made, it can only be discovered through very intensive debugging which may take days. Furthermore, pieces of paper often get lost, crumpled, etc. Sharing such pieces of paper with others (possibly in remote locations) may also be difficult. The need for a solution is urgent since these memory managing problems lie in the critical path of software development at this time.